£2.6bn bank charges payback for 3.8m customers
Six months after The Independent began its campaign against unfair bank charges, the cost of the resulting repayments is revealed
By Martin Hickman, Consumer Affairs Correspondent
Published: 31 August 2007
Consumers challenging charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques have claimed back £2.6bn from Britain’s financial institutions, according to figures that suggest the rebellion against the banks is taking place on a greater scale than imagined.
In a dramatic victory for The Independent’s six-month assault on the charges, an estimated three million people have obtained a full or partial refund from their bank or building society.
The figures come from a YouGov poll which found that more than one third of customers had been charged fees since 2001. Refunds averaged £685. One in 20 bank customers had been billed more than £2,500. Applying the figures to the general population, the price comparison website uSwitch said its research showed that 3.8 million current account customers would have received refunds with a total of £2.6bn.
The British Bankers’ Association disputed the figure but declined to give its own estimate of the cost of the revolt against its members.
Campaigners, the consumer group Which? and the Office of Fair Trade believe unauthorised borrowing fees of up to £38 a time are illegal because they exceed costs. But in a deal that has infuriated campaigners, the OFT is allowing banks to continue levying them – while freezing compensation claims – until a High Court test case in January.
From its polling of 4,000 customers, uSwitch said Lloyds was the most aggressive big high street bank, billing £800 over the six years, with a £30 fee for an overdraft. But it said Abbey was the most prolific, charging £1,376, or £230 a year.
As the campaign against charges has gathered pace, millions of forms challenging the banks and threatening them with legal action have been downloaded from the internet. Martin Lewis, whose moneysavingexpert.com has received more than three million downloads – believes a further £500m to £1bn in refunds is currently frozen pending the OFT case.
If uSwitch is right, the banks have been paying out far more money to aggrieved customers than estimated by City analysts, who have hitherto underestimated the scale of the revolt.
The investment bank Credit Suisse suggested earlier this year that the revolt would knock £200m off the banks’ interim profits. In fact, the five biggest groups – HSBC, Barclays, RBS Group, HBOS and Lloyds – paid out a total of £400m in the first six months of 2007. Given that those five have 65 per cent of the current accounts in the UK, the total level of refunds so far this year may be £550m.
Campaigners have hailed the amount being back paid as an example of people power. “There is a massive sense of empowerment. We get letters and emails saying: ‘This is the first time I have stood up to an organisation’,” said Marc Gander, of the Consumer Action Group.
“The strength of feeling is enormous. We are talking about people who have had their entire lives compromised; their families compromised and their businesses compromised, simply for fees that will turn out to be illegal.”
Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, said uSwitch’s figures were “misleading, and to portray the industry in this way is totally wrong … We are working with the statutory consumer protection authorities to bring about a legal and fair resolution of the debate over the fees we levy for unauthorised overdrafts.”
The campaign against the fees began in earnest last year after a Plymouth law student, Stephen Hone, objected to two £32 charges levied by Abbey and looked up the law books. There, he found the 1999 Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Act, which allowed him to reclaim his charges and he sued the bank. Abbey paid £840 before the case reached court, sending shock waves through the financial system.
Opposition snowballed in February this year when The Independent put its campaign on the front page three times in a week. National television bulletins and other national newspapers took up the story and hundreds of thousands of claims flooded into the banks and the Financial Ombudsman Office, which at one stage was receiving 3,000 complaints a day.
Customers have successfully claimed fees running into tens of thousands of pounds. In many instances, the banks have settled straight away, but in others they have engaged in delaying tactics, obfuscation and retaliation by closing accounts. Two hundred people complained to the Information Commissioner that the banks were not detailing past charges in accordance with data protection rules.
Tracy North, of uSwitch, said the campaign against penalty fees had hit a peak, but warned that there were £731m of charges frozen pending the OFT case, saving financial providers £20m in interest alone.
“For the past six years, banks have been able to carry out this practice … it’s good so much money is now being refunded today. But there’s a lot more to be refunded.” A Which? spokeswoman, Helen Ainsworth, said: “The reason this campaign has struck such a chord with people is because they feel these charges are disproportionate and unfair considering the cost to the bank.”
Banks are estimated to make between £1.2bn and £4.7bn a year from charges when their costs are put at no more than £2 to £4 a time, taking into factors such as offices and staff. In all but a few cases, financial institutions have paid out before they have reached court in what campaigners believe is an attempt to prevent the charges being ruled illegal. If they were declared illegal, banks might have to stop charging the fees, which are a useful source of revenue.